Championship

FINAL:

Alabama 31  Clemson 35

FINAL Player Standings…

CONGRATS to TeemBeer on winning the 2016 Owl's Nest Bowl Pick 'Em brought to you by It's Owl Time!

Does anyone think Alabama could have won with Kiffin?

illinoisowl said

Does anyone think Alabama could have won with Kiffin?

Posted On: Jan 10th 2017, 10:13 AM #365569

Correction: I should have asked "would have won".

illinoisowl said

Does anyone think Alabama could have won with Kiffin?

Posted On: Jan 10th 2017, 10:13 AM #365569

I'd say "We will never know"

But the man kept the team undefeated this year. So yes, I do believe Alabama could've won. And I hope Coach K uses that same mentality when he's recruiting.

Wow #21 was pretty far down…  did have the champion right though!
#gotigers

CONGRATS TEAMBEER!!!!

Personally, I don't think Saban's decision made the difference in the loss.  What we saw is Alabama playing 2 pretty good football teams in Washington and Clemson, and Hurts showed that he is an 18-year old true freshman and had some struggles throwing the ball.  Take away the bone-head coverage by Clemson on the long TD pass, and the passing game was non-existent for the Tide.  Not sure Kiffin would have called a drastically different game, and the difference in my opinion was that Clemson's weapons and tempo on offense finally just wore the Alabama D out (99 friggin' offensive snaps!!!).

Had Scarborough not gotten hurt, Sark would have kept feeding him the ball.  The only big play call offensively for Alabama was the backwards pass and WR throw downfield.  That was a good call, but the rest of the game I think was almost predefined Saban - run the dang ball and rely on the defense.  That probably would have been prescribed to Kiffin, too.

As for the competition, congrats to TeamBeer - I was the poor guy who finished second, and as a new FAU supporter I really could have used the T-shirt and hat!!!

First, Congrats to TeamBeer on your win!

And yes I do beleive Bama would have won with Kiff coaching.

2 for 15 on 3rd downs is bad and they played WAY to conservative IMHO vs. a very good Clemson team. And if losing one RB at that level kills your run game than something is very wrong with that run game IMHO. What stopped it was CLEMSON commiting to stop the run, thus the one long TD pass. They had already stopped the Bama run game BEFORE he got hurt.

The Tide passing game was awful. Hurts threw for 68 yards in the OTHER 31 attempts he made, factoring out the long TD to Howard. That is 2.2 yds per attempt!

Bad super conservative play calling to me. And if Saban is affecting the play calls that much, I would not blame ANY OC for leaving. Not making 3rd down conversions eventually caught up to the Bama D who played a great 1st half (although, slightly dirty).

I think Saint Nick blew the championship IMHO, too smart for himself - again!  After the 14-0 lead, lost the rest of the game 14-35!